Here's a contest which I personally would love even though I'd never ever win it:

Prizes for those nominated-and-voted/selected as the most helpful members on MR. Members' efforts which might be rewarded could include software creation, extensive firmware modification, ebook contributions to the Patricia Clark Library and sustained and active support on jailbreaking threads. Many of the people who do these things devote massive amounts of time to end users like me but can't even afford to buy certain of the readers they're asked repeatedly to test. In my opinion, those people make this site not only fun but invaluable. I'd rather see those people rewarded than anyone else including myself.

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Am I alone in wanting this?: People whose join dates and sole contributions to MR involved posts solely on the last contest thread, and who have now received their prizes, to post -- here or anywhere else on the site -- about a dozen times at least just to show they really are interested in the community. The only reason I can see to condone one-sided reward-seeking is if the idea is simply to induce new members to join for the sake of numbers. (But even then, why not obligate them to contribute a bit as well?)

If new members don't contribute, and the idea wasn't simply to increase registered user numbers, then please consider this idea next time:

Limiting eligible contestants to those who joined MR before the contest and have posted a minimum of twenty times. Many other sites do this for their contests, though in this case I've made the posting minimum lower than any I've seen.

Here's a contest which I personally would love even though I'd never ever win it:

Prizes for those nominated-and-voted/selected as the most helpful members on MR. Members' efforts which might be rewarded could include software creation, extensive firmware modification, ebook contributions to the Patricia Clark Library and sustained and active support on jailbreaking threads. Many of the people who do these things devote massive amounts of time to end users like me but can't even afford to buy certain of the readers they're asked repeatedly to test. In my opinion, those people make this site not only fun but invaluable. I'd rather see those people rewarded than anyone else including myself.

==========================

Am I alone in wanting this?: People whose join dates and sole contributions to MR involved posts solely on the last contest thread, and who have now received their prizes, to post -- here or anywhere else on the site -- about a dozen times at least just to show they really are interested in the community. The only reason I can see to condone one-sided reward-seeking is if the idea is simply to induce new members to join for the sake of numbers. (But even then, why not obligate them to contribute a bit as well?)

If new members don't contribute, and the idea wasn't simply to increase registered user numbers, then please consider this idea next time:

Limiting eligible contestants to those who joined MR before the contest and have posted a minimum of twenty times. Many other sites do this for their contests, though in this case I've made the posting minimum lower than any I've seen.

You're not alone in wanting to find ways to honor those who have contributed heavily to MobileRead. In the Editor's Domain not so long ago, the idea was floated about a contest that involved members voting on those who have been the most helpful over the years. While such an idea has much to commend it, several of us felt that singling out certain members for things they've done to help other members might lead to jealousy and the feeling of being slighted by members who felt their contributions were ignored; and let's face it: when honors are meted out, there are always some people who are equally deserving and in some cases perhaps even more deserving of honors than those who end up actually being recognized. People involved in the decision making process try to be fair, but even so sometimes inadvertently overlook or simply aren't themselves aware of how much some members contribute.

It seems to me that, on the highest level, the same people tend to help out from year to year. Therefore if they weren't honored in 2012 or 2013, they'd be a cinch for 2014. The best thing about honoring specific things -- software and firmware specifically -- would be that they couldn't be manipulated like Karma, which is more often a token of agreement or amusement than actual help.

I can see that ebook uploading could be a sticking point. In craft and choice of texts, some of the most prolific uploaders remind me of the natural world -- Nature's horrible fecundity untempered by taste or restraint -- while the sparest uploaders often give us the best and most diligent work. Each of those two groups -- fecund vs. painstaking and foonts in-between -- would have its factions. Indeed, there are many justifications that can be made for filling out the library as a goal (props to the fecund).

The possibilities for competitiveness and bitterness might be too great in that area, but not so, I think, for those who gave us the likes of calibre, sigil, PRS+, and jailbreaking options for the Kindle (which continue even now in the wake of Amazon's severest lockdown), and have offered support so thorough it's a travesty no one's getting paid.

You make some good points, and I'll bring them to the attention of everyone in the moderation team. Certainly those people you mentioned have performed a service to everyone above and beyond the call of duty over the years.